The Thursday Inbox tries to understand why Sony is being so secretive about the PS5, as one reader finally beats Thunder Force 4.
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Christmas present
I really don’t understand why Nintendo is being given such a free ride this year. Apart from Animal Crossing (which was delayed from last year) they’ve released just one game (Paper Mario: The Origami King) and seem to have no plans for any others. Now, the coronavirus is obviously a factor but this much?! How many games exactly were they going to release before the pandemic? One more? Two more? I can’t believe it would’ve been any more than that.
And what have we got to fill the gap? Pikmin 3. A sequel to a franchise that has never really found much of an audience and which is apparently barely any different from its processor (I never had a Wii U so I don’t know for sure).
I’m assuming those rumours about Super Mario 3D World and the Mario remasters are true but it’s now looking increasingly certain that they’ll be Nintendo’s only big Christmas games. I mean, I love Super Mario 64 as much as the next person but as their centrepiece Christmas release? The year the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 come out? Are they trying to prove that you should spend money on them and not a Switch?
According to Wikipedia Super Mario Bros. came out on 13 September in Japan, so if they are using that as an excuse for the remasters they really need to get a move on and announce them. Or is the indignity going to be added to by the games being late to their own anniversary?
Kobold
Twin Fantasises
Isn’t it going to be a bit weird to have Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7-2 coming out at the same time? Apart from anything I’m not sure what Final Fantasy 16 is going to do about combat. I thought the battle system in the remake was excellent and miles better than anything else in any modern Final Fantasy game. But surely they’re not going to just use the same system?
The best thing they could do is purposefully try for something completely different. If you took that literally it’d be something that focused on the whole party fighting on once and was turn-based, which I’d be totally okay with. Maybe a cross between XCOM and Final Fantasy Tactics.
The worst thing to do would be something that was still real-time but was just different for the sake of being different and ended up seeing like a bad copy of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
I’d really like it if they also changed the setting completely, maybe go back to something more medieval/Tolkien-esque. We’ll find out soon enough I guess but this will be a big test to see whether they’ve got the franchise back on to track.
Gooblin
Speak up
I really don’t understand what Sony is being so secretive for about the PlayStation 5. Can anyone explain the purpose of this secrecy? OK, they don’t want to say the price because they’ll be uncut. I get that. But why not talk about backwards compatibility, and PS Now, and PS Plus, and whatever else they’re doing? Do they think Microsoft are going to copy that as well?
Everything Microsoft is about right now is designed around Game Pass so they’re not exactly going to change that in an instant just to copy Sony. Especially as it wouldn’t be proved it was popular at that point.
All this endless waiting is not just stupid it’s unprofessional and silly. Two megacorporations acting like paranoid school kids trying not to let other people copy them during exams. If you’re confident in what you’re doing just tell everyone!
Strunt
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State of retro
I really thought we were over the era of remasters and remakes being used as cheap filler empty release schedules but here we are with Nintendo and Pikmin 3 and rumours of Rockstar planning more next gen redos of games that are at least a generation old. Does nobody want to play anything new anymore?
There are so few new games being released nowadays I feel like we’re being forced into a state of permanent retro-ness were the industry is never moving forward.
Where are the new franchises for the next gen, that would never have been possible without the new technology? There’s none, from either Sony or Microsoft. Indie developers, as usual, are trying their best but all we’re getting now are shiner versions of games we’ve already seen, often literally.
As usual I’m going to wait at least two years before joining the new generation, but this time I fear even that won’t be enough to ensure something new.
Gordo
Time shamer
I’ve just read an article on another gaming related website (not as good as GC obviously) about the author being unashamed to play games on easy setting and I totally agree. When I had no other commitments apart from school and actually going outside with my mates, I was quite happy to grind my way through a game on the most difficult setting.
This was when games were very expensive on the meagre income from my paper round, coupled with the fact you often needed to play the game on its most difficult setting to see the proper ending.
Now that I’m supposed to be grown up I have to get on with other daily things and I can also buy many more games than I could afford when I was 14 because I can buy a lot of games on the cheap, along with the premium priced titles I want.
I will admit that I’ve happily cheated through the hard mode on some 80s to 90s era games, using rewind and save states just so I could get to the end. My 13-year-old self from 1990 would be disgusted!
John
Working backwards
After over a month of strenuous effort to beat the penultimate and final levels I’ve finally conquered Thunder Force 4. Easily one of the finest shmups I’ve experienced to date.
The weapon systems, level design, art direction, enemy formations and bosses, and soundtrack are of the highest quality in the genre if you ask me.
As my first Thunder Force game I now fully understand the reverence this series commands in the shmup and retro communities. Everything just feels so refined for the optimal shmup experience. M2 did a terrific job with the emulation. On to Thunder Force 3 next, which quite recently landed on the Switch.
Galvanized Gamer
What day is it?
Hey GC, just wondering if I’ve missed something with regards to the Marvel’s Avengers beta, as you’ve said a couple of times that the PlayStation early access was the weekend just gone, but everything I’ve read suggests that it all kicks off this weekend, with downloads starting tomorrow.
Have you had a special press only early event? Or have those time travel experiments been working a treat?
StellarFlux
GC: Oh. We genuinely didn’t realise it was a press-only beta, but you’re right the public one isn’t till this weekend. We imagine you’ll still be getting more or less the same thing though, as what we played was definitely branded as the beta and not just a demo of the full game.
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Second-class gaming
A somewhat bizarre decision by Square Enix to include exclusive content on their Avengers games as a service title. I find it somewhat strange that that they should go with what has to be a short-term cash grab on a title which they hope to run for years, thereby alienating a substantial percentage of their potential buyers.
Not only is it a rather insidious practice to treat part of your customer base as second-class citizens, but if I was a PlayStation owner I would wonder if two years down the line the boot might be on the other foot if Google came along with a wad of cash.
Fortunately, I have little interest in the game, as I have no real interest in games as a service as the thought of spending thousands of hours on a single title fills me with dread, I’d rather take up knitting. I’m a member of Game Pass which I love as it has given me the chance to play some games which I have really enjoyed but would probably never have bought.
If the Avengers were to have come to Game Pass I would have tried it out, but I will not be now as I object to being treated as a second-class citizen just because my console has an ‘X’ shaped logo on the front.
John A
Inbox also-rans
Need to know why people that have PlayStation 4 can’t play with people that have Xbox One games like GTA Online, and other games too.
Ronald Myles
GC: Because Sony doesn’t want to create an excuse for you to buy an Xbox One instead of a PlayStation 4. They’ve only recently caved in, slightly, because of public pressure.
Wilmot’s Warehouse is free on PC on Epic Games Store from today at 4pm.
Andrew J.
This week’s Hot Topic
The topic for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Xane who asks what game series did you used to enjoy but have now fallen out of love with?
Many franchises have been going for a decade or more at this point, so are there any that you used to play a lot but now don’t? And is it on purpose or because you don’t own the right console? Or perhaps you’ve just drifted away from the series over the years?
What could draw you back and are there any new games this year, or in the next gen, that you’re planning to get that would be your first time with that series for a while?
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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length.
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
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